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The Highway and the Lost Soldier

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The Highway and the Lost Soldier The midday sun around Adelaide River does something violent to the bitumen. At forty-five degrees, the Stuart Highway softens like melting fat; it turns into a black mirror, rippling with an unnatural, liquid glare that pools over every low rise. That is where it waits. He is always trudging south, away from life and deeper into the blistering furnace, his boots making no sound against the tar. From two hundred yards out, he resembles a stranded traveler you’d pull over to save. He wears sun-bleached, disintegrating drill cotton that matches the bone-white dust of the termite country, his head angled down at an impossible, broken angle against the glare. No broad-brim hat. No swag. No water bottle. Just stiff, unnatural limbs jerking with every stride. “Driver... look at his face. We need to stop—why won't he turn around?” He is no lost tourist. Could he be the linesman from the Overland Telegraph days who tore off his clothes and vanished into the ...

Time and Distraction reflection



Time and Distraction reflection

  • Reflection on competing needs
Plan to Plan
  • Start the day with a 10-minute planning space
Delegate to technology
  • Use technology effectively to cut out duplication and repetition
Use a variety of memory-based approaches
  • Hearing, Text, Visual and Tactile
Enable Planning
  • Learning Planning processes
  • Remove Procrastination
  • Self reflect on organizational practices
  • Develop a can-do mindset
I Can't Get My Work Done:
  • An hour per day of distracted time translates into $10,375 of wasted productivity per person per year, assuming an average salary of $30/hour. 
  • That is more than the average U.S. driver will spend this year to own and maintain a car, according to the Automobile Association of America (AAA). 
  • Toggling between multiple applications/windows/tabs/items on the desktop contributes to the problem of distraction, along with using multiple devices at the same time. 
  • 45% of survey respondents keep at least six items open simultaneously, and 65% report using one to three desktop or mobile devices in addition to their main computer.
From Associated Content: a few active steps you can take to minimize distractions:
  • Know yourself and what distracts you
  • Change your atmosphere if necessary (turn down or up the music, for instance)
  • Limit computer distractions to certain times of the day or a certain number of times (such as checking your email 3 xs/day)
  • Don’t take calls unless convenient for you; you can call back
  • Shorten conversations with coworkers
Email Distraction
  • STOP REACTING
  • According to a 2007 study by Loughborough University academic, Thomas Jackson, most of us reply to e-mails immediately - many within six seconds. Then it takes at least a minute to recover our thoughts. Not long after, more e-mails arrive, with more checking, and so on.









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Comments

  1. And ironically I found this post through Twitter while sitting down to write a post myself.

    I agree, it's a constant battle to stay on track. When I'm working I often shut Twitter off completely, those little flashes that something new has arrived are too tempting. I try to deal with email twice a day - when I get up I go through and delete, then at the end of the day I answer things I've had a chance to think about.

    At least that's the aim!

    ReplyDelete

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